In this week's Madison County Board meeting, I voted in favor of an adjustment to fees being collected by the county. Some of these fees increased and some were decreased, based on a study conducted by a consulting firm in the last year.

Of the fees that were increased, the biggest impact will be in two groups, the Sheriff's department, and automation fees.

For the Sheriff's department, these fees will only be assessed in the event of a conviction. I am a believer that convicted criminals should be shouldering a larger burden of financing the Sheriff's department, instead of all of that burden being on the property tax payer.

The other large area of fee collection, automation fees, will be going directly into restricted automation funds. These funds have been running at a deficit and the things that these funds should pay for have been at least partially paid for by the general fund for the last few years. These fee increases will correct this and put the burden of financing automation on the users of these services, and again, not on the property tax payer.

User fees make up about 30 percent of the county budget and without them, those costs would be transferred to our property tax. These are the reasons I voted in favor of them last night. I just believe it is the right thing to do for the taxpayers of Madison County